Friday, March 09, 2012

Tuesday evening I came home
from work, poured myself a glass of wine, and began to read. I was tired, so I
grabbed the first book I saw, the only book I could reach from the kitchen
table, which happened to be a cookbook: Nigel Slater’s Tender.

I had cooked from this handsome book only a few days before, when I made dinner for my mom and
her boyfriend, Charley. (An aside: I feel strange continuing to describe
Charley as my mother’s “boyfriend.” They have been together ten years now, lived
together for 8. He helped to take care of me after the car accident. He was
there when I moved to New York City, to California, to Boston. I wrote about
him in my book. He’s seen me at my worst, and my best. From now on he shall be,
simply, Charley.)

I cooked the simplest of
dinners, one that took barely any time to throw together, but filled the house
with a sweet and salty aroma, a meaty smell, a hungry smell, a scent that
promised satisfaction.

I made Slater’s “Sausage and
Pumpkin Mash,” and the recipe title pretty much sums it up. Sausage, roasted
with a sauce made of mustard, honey, and lemon. Pumpkin, (or, in this case,
butternut squash), steamed and then mashed with butter, salt, pepper, and (my
addition of) a glob of sour cream. I served the dish with an arugula salad
dressed in a simple lemon vinaigrette.

You see, two weeks ago
Charley went into surgery to have his hip replaced. It was a quick and
successful surgery. He was home within days. Charley is a stalwart fellow, and
is doing okay. But a hip replacement is big, recovery happens slowly, and he has
been in pain. I’ve been cooking for him and my mom a lot.

I will admit that it’s been
strange to be in that house with someone who is recovering from a serious
injury. Seven years ago I was hit by a car and recovered from my own injuries there,
too. Months and months of slow-motion healing, lying in the bed we hoisted from
the second floor to the living room, nursing my broken pelvis and fractured
skull, the knee surgery that left a 9-inch scar snaking down the side of my
leg. I remember feeling like a shell of a human, a cracked shell at that. I
wasn’t sure I would ever be okay.

Being in that house now
brings me viscerally back to those months. Remembering the mechanics of pain
pills, the engineering required to climb the stairs with only one working leg.
Simply the sound of Charley’s crutches moving along that particular wooden floor
echoes in my ears and memory, both.

Anyway. After work, Tuesday,
I poured myself a glass of wine and began to read. Slater begins this book by writing
about lists. He keeps lists. Lots of them. Some on paper. Some in his head.

“One list that has remained
in my head is that of favorite scents, the catalogue of smells I find
particularly evocative or uplifting. Snow (yes, I believe it has a smell), dim
sum, old books, cardamom, beeswax, moss, warm pancakes, a freshly snapped
runner bean, a roasting chicken, a fleeting whiff of white narcissi on a
freezing winter’s day.”

Yes, yes, yes.

He goes on:

“High on that list comes
cress seeds sprouting on wet blotting paper. It is a smell I first encountered
in childhood, a classroom project that became a hobby. Cool and watery, fresh
yet curiously ancient, as you might expect from a mixture of green shoots and
damp parchment, it has notes of both nostalgia and new growth about it.
Sometimes, when I have watered my vegetable patch late on a spring evening, I
get a fleeting hint of that scent. A ghostlike reminder of how this whole thing
started.”

I immediately copied those
passages down into a notebook, the scribbly old notebook I keep handy to write
down just such things. It felt very important on Tuesday night. It still does,
though I’m not sure why. Something about scent, of course. Scents that bring us
back. That move us forward. Something about lists. The lists Slater writes. The
lists I write, have written, the ones I keep in my head. Something about
remembering who I was, where I was, what brought me there. Something about
nostalgia. About growing, and healing, and helping each other out. Maybe I just
want a vegetable patch.

Preheat the oven to 400
degrees Fahrenheit. Lay the sausages out on a rimmed baking sheet, making sure
that they don’t overlap. In a separate bowl, mix together the mustard, honey,
and lemon juice. Pour the dressing over the sausages. Bake for 25 to 30
minutes, turning the sausages once or twice to make sure that the sauce, which
will turn into a thick and sticky glaze, covers them all.

For the mash: Peel and seed
the squash, and then cut the flesh into 1 – 2 inch chunks. Steam the squash
pieces, covered in a large pot, for about 20 minutes, until tender. Mash the squash with a wooden spoon (note: Slater recommends
giving it a whirl in a stand mixer, using the paddle attachment) in a large bowl. Add the
butter, and stir until relatively smooth. Add salt, pepper, and sour cream (if
using), to taste.

Divide the mash onto four
plates, and balance the sausages, drizzled with their sauce, on top. Pretend
you’re in Britain, and enjoy.